What I Did Instead of Gardening

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Vacation. One would think there would be much gardening. But no. Instead, at the insistence of one small boy I have spent practically every waking hour building a bunk bed.

If you use your imagination you can see that it is actually a pirate ship, and the top bunk is the crow’s nest. You will need to use your imagination less next week, when the captain’s wheel, telescope, and rope ladder arrive in the mail. I am thinking of rigging up a sail, but can’t quite figure out where it would go. I suppose it could be the curtain?

I have spent countless hours mulling this bed, and how to make it solid. I was amused to realize that if I had bought a cheapo bunk bed at Ikea I would not have thought for a moment about its safety. But this bed, which I have built by hand, I wonder about. I tied the two-by-four that holds up the wall-end of the bed to the studs with four four-inch lag screws, and both screwed and glued the beams to the two-by-four. The beams are held up by a book case made as solid as I know how, held together with screws and glue and a backing of half inch plywood. This is one weighty piece of furniture, as a pirate ship should be. And yet I lie on the bottom bunk, looking up at those beams, and imagine the whole crashing down in an earthquake with Noah below. But that would involve the whole house falling down, probably, so we’d all be in trouble anyway.

This is life, I suppose. I fear going to Nigeria, because I could be killed in a car crash. I fear Noah sleeping under a bunk bed, because it could fall on him. I seem to be unable to either stop fearing, or to stop courting the fear by doing these things. Maybe it reminds me of how much I love the things I could lose?